Rus and Keri Go To Zions

Just so you know, when you are married ten years you earn a trip away. I know this is not always possible because children are natural impediments to "alone time," but still. You have earned it. I earned it by putting up with Rus and he earned it by putting up with me. What made the trip enjoyable was the fact that we actually still really like each other. (It might even be love.)
The trip in a nutshell:
We left Monday and came home Friday. We spent one night in a tent at Jacob's Lake, three nights at a house in St. George, and at least 20 hours in the car.
Now the not-nutshell-version:
Cutesy showed up Saturday night. We spent a generous 24 hours with her informing and warning her of all possible "worst-case-scenarios," and then rushed off in a cloud of dust (yelling "WAHOO!") on Monday morning before she could re-think the whole situation.  
We rushed off in HER car.
That's right.
Gorgeous.
That's her name. The car's.
...with less than 7000 miles on it, well at least before the trip.
...in her fully loaded Ford Focus with every available accommodation including a slightly crappy navigation system. But it had Sirius radio with Blue Collar comedy, comfy seats, great gas mileage, and could really get up and go. (Not that we ever drove it like that. Promise.)
Right before we left my mom mentioned to Rus that she had just had it washed and noticed three and only three dings on the front bumper. Take that how you will...
Here I am the first night with Gorgeous.

Notice which of us was in focus? The Focus. Because Rus developed a slight crush - he's a sucker for bells and whistles. My mom also mentioned something to him about parking her far, far away from anything and we wound up in the boonies of every parking lot, giving deference to her shiny exterior and not my sore calves. I might have developed a slight jealousy complex by hearing my husband mention Gorgeous and not have it be me.
Anywho...
After Jacob's Lake (where they have a delectable restaurant and bakery), we headed to Zion's National Park, which is east of St. George. We pulled over to explain to my mom on the phone how to get Netflix (and the Transformer cartoon) working and Rus snapped some pictures. I was really there, but I look very photo-shopped in in this picture...

 We made our way down the very busy Zion canyon and took the shuttle up to the Grotto so we could go on a short-ish hike. (We had no food to our names besides an apple and some store-bought oatmeal cookies - that's why we kept it short.) Here is the Virgin River in Zion Canyon.

 We hiked up to the upper Emerald pools. Rus tried to get me to talk in a few pohnepain words (from his mission) so we could be foreign like everyone else, but I couldn't do it. Saying "hello," to hikers is reflexive for me; I was hopeless.

 The next day we prepared ourselves with plenty of food and half as much water as we would actually need and headed out to do a more vigorous hike. We chose the Lee Pass trailhead because it was on the west side of Zion's away from the main canyon and subsequently much less traffic. But it was still captivating and beautiful due in large part to the LaVerkin creek that it followed. Here is Rus at the trail head. I know this picture has that lens spot thing by his head, but it's better than the glare on the picture where he's not wearing his hat...and the scenery is breathtaking, too. No one but my hot-honey can (and does) enjoy hiking in a swanky button-up shirt. It breathes better than a regular t-shirt, fyi.

 About four-ish miles into the hike we heard the rush of the river before we could even see it. We had seen glimpses of the river off and on for miles but it was nothing like this. This was beautiful. It was my favorite part of the whole trip. We had lunch here, took a million pictures here, and enjoyed the water.

 Another picture from that hike...the sky was SO blue and the rocks were SO red, it was beautiful.

The half-way point in our hike was marked by the Kolob Arch. It was an obscure arch located .6 miles off the main trail on a much more strenuous trail than we'd encountered up to that point.

 This sign said, "Further travel not recommended." (Rus and I happily obliged.) Next to that, scratched in with a rock it said, "Kolob Arch, Look Up!" That is how obscure the arch was - you could be looking right at it and not really see that it was there. By the way this is also the point where we realized we were pretty much out of water. A forest ranger happened to mention that there was a spring nearby where some of them got water (and drank it without treating it). We decided to take our chances - the runs later was a more favorable option than three hours and seven miles of thirst - and we survived. The water actually tasted great, too.

This was the view when we finished our hike.

 The next day I convinced Rus to do something a little less strenuous. He made me pick the hike so I chose the Narrows, a super popular and thus super populated hike that was simultaneously breathtaking and wet. Very wet. The trail is the Virgin river. We moseyed up it for about two hours and then headed back and out.

 You should be aware that getting these pictures with no one else in them was actually a great feat, because there were people everywhere on the trail.

On Friday we drove home a long but pleasant nine hours. We were refreshed, rejuvenated, and excited to get back to our kids and to relieve Cutesy. She did a great job, the kids survived and we were all happy to see each other.

The end.

Please recognize that we actually took 417 pictures on this trip. You got 13 of them. You're welcome.